SEEDBALLS Kenya

Our mission is to protect and restore endangered wildlife species globally by funding boots on the ground initiatives and well-informed charitable partners.

The SIDEKICK Foundation provides funding for well-informed partners like Well Told Story whose mission is to create social and economic value in Africa by harnessing the power of research, media and strategic communications to improve lives. The SIDEKICK Foundation and Well Told Story brought their two missions together on a groundbreaking report entitled Understanding Young People’s Attitudes Towards Wildlife and Conservation that researched youth attitudes towards wildlife and conservation in Kenya. What they found was that the wildlife conservation industry is very confusing for Kenyan youth. The relationships between conservancies, communities and wildlife are often conflicting and the ways for youth to engage and the rewards for doing so are not obvious.

SIDEKICK Foundation, Inc. is the primary funder of a boots on the ground initiative, Mara Elephant Project, which aims to ensure the safety and prosperity of African elephants in the Maasai Mara region. Strong anti-poaching action, partnerships with local government, elephant research, GPS tracking and community education and outreach help MEP to accomplish their mission of managing human-elephant conflict.

THE CRISIS

A mixture of land-use changes resulting from human population growth, deforestation and poaching for elephants’ highly valuable ivory is causing populations to dwindle. Humans are encroaching upon historic elephant rangelands, and human-elephant conflict is on the rise. That, paired with the demand for ivory, means the illegal killing of elephants is at its highest level since the international ivory trade ban.

OUR APPROACH

We save and protect the African elephant population in the Mara by combatting poaching operations, collaring, monitoring and researching elephants, and protecting farmers and elephants across their large dispersal area.

Rangers distributing Seedballs whilst on patrol.

Protecting elephants to conserve the greater Mara Ecosystem

SIDEKICK Foundation, Inc. is the primary funder of a boots on the ground initiative, Mara Elephant Project, which aims to ensure the safety and prosperity of African elephants in the Maasai Mara region. Strong anti-poaching action, partnerships with local government, elephant research, GPS tracking and community education and outreach help MEP to accomplish their mission of managing human-elephant conflict.